American journalism, and the slanted tale of violence in Palestine

This is the third installment in The Culturalist's 2011 Series on Islam.

My recent interest in local Muslim perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have led me to an fascinating organization: If Americans Knew founded by California journalist, Alison Weir. Weir started the organization when, following a trip to Palestine, she realized that the mainstream media (ABC, NBC, CBS, NY Times, NPR, et. al.) were offering an
extremely biased Pro-Israeli slant on the conflict. Her criticism is based on careful analysis of the numbers of actual deaths that took place on each side (Palestinian, Israeli), in contrast to the number of deaths mentioned by each media organization. While over time the real number of Palestinian deaths has consistently exceeded the number of Israeli deaths, the media has consistently conveyed the opposite: the number of news stories on Israeli deaths increasingly exceeds the number of stories of Palestinian deaths. This creates a strong political bias, because when death is reported, the group in question is portrayed as the victim.



Here are the details:

In these videos, Weir tells her story, and reveals her research process and results.